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had previously received a charter and Darnley. At the most, he of Tantallon, the command of succeeds in minimising, not in rewhich had greatly strengthened futing, Morton's connection with the powers of the Earls of the these crimes; and even accepting, other race. But though the Earls as far as possible, the extenuating. of Angus occupied a position in view of his character put forth in the kingdom scarcely inferior to these pages, we still carry away their Black kinsmen, they were, the impression of the Regent as taking them as a whole, a much a man evil in his generation, in less distinguished race. "Bell-the- whom the arrogance and force of Cat" is the most prominent per- the medieval baron is evolving sonage in their line. On the poetic into the subtlety and craft of the character which Scott has por- statesman of the Renaissance—a trayed in Marmion' of this war- survival in one sense, an embryo rior, Mr Fraser has thrown some in another. important side lights. To most of those who know him as "Bellthe-Cat," the ancient Earl, who

"Leaned his large and wrinkled hand
Upon the huge and sweeping brand,
Which wont of yore in battle fray
His foemen's limbs to shred away,
As wood-knife lops the sapling spray,"

the representative of brute force and feudal power, it will be information that the Earl of Angus was no mean adept in statecraft, and showed much diplomacy in steering his own course through the troubled times of James III. From the record Mr Fraser gives us of him, we are inclined to think that he must have possessed much of the politic wisdom which characterised his great-grandson, the Regent Morton. Of Morton himself Mr Fraser gives only a brief outline, as the Regent was only in the collateral line of Angus, and we would have been glad to have had his memoir treated with the same minuteness as has been bestowed upon those of several Douglases of much less historical importance. It is evident, however, that Mr Fraser is disposed to take a more lenient view of the guilt which Morton had, according to other historians, incurred in connection with the murders of Rizzio

The eleventh Earl of Angus, of the troubled times of the Covenant, became the first Marquis of Douglas. But the Douglases had now ceased to exercise that influence in Scotland which had belonged to their ancestors. New men, whose statesmanship was more in accord with the shifting character of the times, passed them unopposed in the race for power; their feudal strength was of less importance in the new era; and their native pride kept them for the most part aloof from Court and political intrigues. Henceforth it is among the cadets of the family, who had their own way to push in the world, that we are chiefly able to distinguish evidences of the old Douglas ability. Of the sons of the first Marquis, two made their mark : Colonel of the Scots Guard in the service of France; and the other, the first Earl of Selkirk, who was created Duke of Hamilton for life

one as

he had married the Duchess-as one of the statesmen of the Revolution, which he was largely instrumental in effecting in Scotland. Another son was the Earl of Dumbarton, who followed James VII. into exile, and died in the French service.

In the time of the second Mar

quis, the affairs of the Douglas property became greatly complicated under bad management; and the chief record of his life is the struggles on the part of his friends and advisers to ward off impending ruin. During both marquisates the Douglas family had been constantly protesting for the ancient precedence due in Parliament and at Court to their family; and on the passing of the Act of Union, a protest was made in the name of Archibald, the third Marquis, who had lately been created Duke of Douglas, "that the treaty should not prejudice his honours and privileges of the first vote in Parliament, carrying the crown, and leading the van in battle;" and the protest was confirmed by an Act before the final dissolution of the Scots Parliament. Archibald was the first and last Duke of his name. There must have been something ominous in the acceptance of a title which had been declined by both Douglas and Angus when at the height of their power, at a time when their descendant was in reduced, if not decaying, circum

stances.

Mr Fraser does not devote much space to the Duke of Douglas, and his memoir treats that nobleman with more reserve than frankness. All that Duke Archibald seems to have had in common with his ancestors was their pride, revengefulness, and handsome form. He was ignorant, uneducated, and enormously vain of his position and descent. He seems, however, to have been devotedly attached to his sister Lady Jane, whose beauty and sweetness attracted many admirers, and whom he watched over with jealous care. The breaking off of a marriage-contract between Lady Jane and Lord Dalkeith

afterwards second Duke of Buccleuch-drew the Duke of Douglas into a duel with the latter; and the lady herself, misled by the silly counsels of her French governess, sought to fly from her sorrows by retiring to France disguised in men's clothes, whither the Duke followed and brought her back. Some years after her return, the Duke became involved, on his sister's account, in a quarrel, which had a much more unfortunate termination. Mr Fraser thus briefly refers to the matter:

tragedy occurs which overshadowed

re

the This was

"In 1725 a considerably mainder of the Duke's life. the death of Captain John Ker, a natural son of Lord Mark Ker, a young man of whom his Grace was very fond, and who was then staying at Douglas have been so variously related, that it The particulars of the tragedy is impossible to ascertain the exact details; but there seems no doubt that the young man fell by the Duke's own hand, while they were fencing or otherwise. A few days afterwards

Castle.

the Duke went to Edinburgh and sailed for Holland."

Wodrow's Analecta is the authority which Mr Fraser quotes for the account he has adopted; but we see no reason to reject the version current at the time, supported as it is by very circumstantial details. The Duke's pride had taken suspicion at an attachment between Captain Ker and his sister; and Lady Jane, to speak with all due respect of one whose misfortunes merit our sympathy, certainly did not limit her affections within the exclusive bounds which had been observed by her ancestress the Fair Maid of Galloway. His Grace had accordingly subjected both of them to close surveillance, and had observed Ker, on the night before his de

parture from the castle, enter Lady Jane's dressing-room to take his leave of her. The Duke, in an ungovernable fury, went to his room, seized a pistol, and entering Captain Ker's chamber, who had then gone to bed, pulled down the clothes, and shot him in the side with a mortal wound. Whether this led to a quarrel between Lady Jane and her brother, or whether she felt apprehensive for her personal safety, she soon after this event quitted the castle, and went to live with her mother in Edinburgh.

Mr Fraser also does something less than justice to the very strongly marked individuality of Peggy Douglas of Mains, whom the Duke married-or perhaps, more strictly speaking, who married the Duke. Perhaps he thinks the numerous anecdotes current with regard to her Grace unworthy of being recorded by the family historian. Still, the traits preserved of her are so indicative of a strong and original spirit, that we would not have them perish. Her reasons for wishing to marry the Duke were three in number: she, like the Fair Maid of Galloway, would wed no one but a Douglas, and the chief of the name; she bore a fierce animosity to the Hamilton family, and wished to be instrumental in cutting off their succession to the Douglas titles and estates; and lastly, she wished to be a duchess. She contrived to get access to the Duke, who was then shut up in seclusion at Douglas, by pretending to consult him on some law affair, and soon succeeded in leading him on to matrimony. When some of her friends remonstrated with her regarding the risk she ran in marry ing one who was generally looked upon as a madinan, her courageous reply was, that when she chose she

could be as mad as he was; and according to all accounts she was as good as her word. She is generally credited with having burned down Douglas Castle to compel her husband to quit his retirement and resume his position in society; but as her own jewels were lost in the fire, we must hold her acquitted of this charge.

Beginning in mystery, the Douglas history ends in romance; what is known as the "Douglas Cause" closes its annals. We have mentioned one adventurous escapade of Lady Jane Douglas. She was, however, destined to be the heroine of more remarkable situations. She certainly did not escape the breath of scandal, and she is made to figure in Mrs Heywood's Utopia,' no doubt with as little justice as other ladies of reputation are mentioned in that now happily forgotten work. When the trial of her son's cause was turning, to a very considerable exrent, upon the mother's character, all sorts of slanderous charges were bruited regarding her-such, for instance, as that she had had a liaison with Lord Mansfield, who afterwards was one of the judges who declared in favour of her son. For our own part, we prefer to accept the estimate of Lady Jane which Mr Fraser offers us, with the qualification that we cannot acquit her of a tendency to gallantry characteristic of the fashionable ladies of her generation. But whatever faults she had were painfully expiated; and no one can read her letters, or the account of her sufferings, without being moved to sympathy on her behalf.

According to the statement of her husband, Colonel Stuart, Lady Jane had refused the Dukes of Hamilton, Buccleuch, and Athole, Earls of Hopetoun, Aberdeen,

Panmure, cum multis aliis." This was, no doubt, a pardonable flight of feminine imagination. She had reached her forty-eighth year when she married Colonel Stuart, "a prodigious fine figure of a man," who had been out in the 'Fifteen, had served under Charles XII. of Sweden, had ventured in the Mississippi Scheme, and was at the time of his marriage in very needy circumstances." The pair were privately united by the Episcopal Bishop Keith, and almost immediately left for the Continent, keeping the marriage secret in case the Duke might cut off Lady Jane's annuity. Singularly enough Lady Jane became the mother of twins, both boys, within two years of her marriage, and the Douglas case-as distinguished from the Douglas Cause-was based upon doubts regarding the maternity of these children. Lady Jane's age, the private life led by her and her husband upon the Continent, their frequent changes of residence, and above all, the stakes involved in the issue, raised suspicions of which those interested naturally did not hesitate to take advantage. On the death of the Duke in 1761, Mr Stuart was served heir of entail and provision to his uncle, the Marquisate of Douglas and Earldom of Angus going to the seventh Duke of Hamilton, the heir-male of the Douglas line. A year after, the Hamiltons assailed Mr Stuart's title to the Douglas and Angus estates, on the ground that he was not the son of Lady Jane. We are not going into the details of the Douglas Cause, which fill numerous bulky volumes, which engaged the Court of Session from 1761 to 1767, occupied the talents of the ablest lawyers in Scotland-and the Bar was crowded by intellectual giants

at the time-rent society into Douglas and Hamilton factions, and had almost led to civil commotions in the country. The decrees of the Court of Session extends in manuscript to ten folio volumes, containing in all nine thousand six hundred and seventy-six pages; and it was adverse to Mr Stuart. When it came before the House of Lords, the contest was conducted under not less heat and excitement, one of the incidents of which was a duel between Thurlow, Mr Stuart's counsel, and Mr Stuart, the agent of the Duke of Hamilton. After two months' pleadings and able speeches from Lord Camden, the Chancellor, and Lord Mansfield, in favour of Mr Stuart, the Peers reversed the decision of the Court of Session. The news was received in Edinburgh with rapturous enthusiasm by the partisans of the winning side. In a private letter to Mr Stuart's father, Sir John of Grandtully, the excitement is thus described:

"An express arrived here at eight o'clock, Thursday night, with the news of Mr Douglas having prevailed, which was so agreeable to the people in general, that in a few min

utes the whole houses were illuminated; all the windows to the street were broke by the mob before candles

could be lighted. They began with the President's house, the JusticeClerk's, Lord Galloway's, &c., &c., upon which the military in the castle were called. Last night the mob as ever. The were as numerous night, and it's thought the mob will houses were again illuminated last continue this evening. The military continue still to patrole the streets; and notwithstanding, I hear of no damage except the breaking of windows, which indeed is general."

Mr Stuart was recompensed for the persecution he had sustained by being created a British peer, by the title of Baron Douglas of

Douglas. Three of his sons in succession bore the title; and as the last Lord Douglas, who died in 1857, left no issue, the peerage became extinct, until it was revived in 1875 in favour of the Earl of Home, who represents the old Douglas line through his grandmother, a daughter of the first peer of the new creation.

We are reluctant to part from volumes which have afforded us so much pleasure and information as The Douglas Book' has given us, with any remark implicative of censure; but we cannot forbear referring to one important omission. In the admirable genealogical tables of the Douglas families, so elaborately full in all other respects, no notice is taken of the Marquises of Douglas and Earls of Angus since 1761. These titles are still in existence; and this fact is not affected by the exclusion of those who bear them from The Douglas Book.' But the omission might be construed as meaning more than it doubtless implies. The Douglas Cause is

now a matter of more than a hundred years ago.

The history of the Douglases down to the time when the Stuarts succeeded to the English throne, may be almost said to comprehend within itself the history of Scotland; and the Scottish annals lose in interest and picturesqueness when they no longer occupy the foremost place. For good and for evil they wrote their names deeply in the records of their country. The house of Douglas produced, to quote the Hamilton Information,' "a series of heroes whose gallant and martial achievements. in the service of their country, however fatal upon many occasions to themselves, has stamped upon the minds of all ranks and degrees of persons indelible characters of esteem, respect, and veneration, which neither length of time nor the degeneracy of later ages has been able to efface." When we have said that The Douglas Book' is worthy of its subject, we can bestow no higher praise upon either the work or its author.

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